


It Hurts When I See You Struggle

by BourbonOnTheRocks



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Caretaking, Chaperone!Mick, Did I Mention Angst?, Enemies To Frienemies With Benefits To Lovers, Eventual Fluff, Extremely Unhealthy Dynamic, Extremely Vague Timeline Because Have You Seen This Show?, F/M, Graphic Depictions Of Pain And Injuries, Grief, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Kissing, Masturbation, Mick Is The Only One With The Braincell In The Room, Mutual Pining (kinda), Power Game, Psychological Torture, Revenge, Rough Sex, Tired!Mick, Toxicity, Trauma, Vague And Extremely Twisted Fluff, bed sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:14:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27125044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BourbonOnTheRocks/pseuds/BourbonOnTheRocks
Summary: She turns to Mick, still lost at sea for the most part. As usual, he doesn't humor her with a conversation."You said you wanted to help," he says with a severe nod before she has time to speak."I didn't—" she trails off before she remembers when she said it. And to whom. How it all — "I don't understand..." she mutters.She understands. She does. She just really hopes that she misinterpreted the situation.ORA reluctant Beth reluctantly nurses a reluctant Rio. High reluctance ensues.Canon-divergent/missing scenes/S3 rewrite after 2.13/3.01.
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Comments: 68
Kudos: 387





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, it's me again, the angst monster! I have no excuse for this except that I missed writing some angsty Beth POV... Just a warning, though: this is a really dark, unhealthy fic, and it's probably not for everybody. Which is fine, but be sure you have read the tags before you engage with it, and let me know if there is anything else I should add!

"And please don't hesitate to tell me if there is anything else you need. I would be glad to help."

There's a derailing falsetto in Beth's voice that's barely noticeable, even to her own, trained ear.

"That's very generous of you. I'll try to think about it," Rhea says softly as she closes her front door with a weak smile.

Back in her car, Beth drops her purse on the passenger's seat and closes her eyes in a loud exhale. It doesn't work. She'd thought it would make things better but... It's been a little more than a week since she dared to talk to this woman at the park. Befriended her. Made a quick way into her life, bonded through the fallacious pretext of kids arrangements.

And Rhea's been more than welcoming, trusting her mom-of-the-year smile and the school tips she offered for free. Not even once has Rhea questioned Beth's motives, underneath the altruist and helpful facade. And Beth thought that it would... _ease_. Something, although she's got no idea of what, because she's not — grieving. She's not. She did what she had to do, and the rest, well it's all in her head.

But she's been feeling... defensive, lately. Always on the verge of having to explain herself. To whom, she doesn't know. But it's been itching around the edges of her conscience, and it's taken her a while to realize that it's probably what people call guilt. Or — something along those lines.

And she'd thought that doing something _good_ for the son of the man she — well. Maybe it would counterbalance her sort of karmic debt. But it's spectacularly not working. It's not that she's wallowing, though. Honestly, it doesn't keep her awake at night. Doesn't stop her from going on with her life. It just... strikes her, sometimes, like a familiar ache, a discomfort similar to rediscovering a stretched muscle.

Except that she can't rub her conscience gently until the pain goes away. Can't give it a warm relaxing bath either.

But maybe it'll eventually heal if she keeps helping Rhea with... whatever. Anything. Providing help for soccer games and wine for chatty nights. The sensation will fade away until it's long gone, until it's just the blurred muscle memory of something she did a long time ago.

And then one night she comes home, something like three weeks after _that_ night, and he's here. Not — _him_. Obviously. But the tattooed guy she's often, if not always, seen in his wake and whose name she's not exactly sure of. The one with the leather jacket and a smaller bird drawn above a pierced eyebrow — seriously, are these guys into bird-watching or what? He brought a friend with him — for lack of a better word — one she's seen a few times too and seems to be part of the cleaning team. Not that she has any idea of where she owns that knowledge from. The latter's holding a baseball bat, the larger extremity bouncing rhythmically in his palm, and Beth's assurance collapses.

So this is it. This is what death looks like. Because — obviously. They're going to kill her. Somehow, they know about what she did. An icy feeling drips along her spine, and her fight or flight instinct kicks in just a second too late. The gangbanger in front of her tuts with practiced weariness when her breath catches with adrenaline, and he shakes his head before she's even pulled the thinnest rope of dramatic, desperate move.

"Get in the car," he grunts, low but with natural authority, his whole attitude screaming that he doesn't have time for a pathetic round of bargaining.

She opens her mouth to protest but he adds, barely louder, "Now."

And she... she's frozen. It's fascinating, really, how her feet are rooted to the ground in that instant. Every cell in her brain is yelling at her to leave, now, that maybe she still has a chance to make it. But deep down she knows that she won't. If they're after her, it's only a matter of time.

And she senses that the waiting is the worst part.

So she obliges, sandwiched between the two men during the short walk their strange trio takes to the curb, and climbs on the passenger's seat of their car. She keeps quiet for a while, catches from their minimalistic conversation that the driver's name is Mick and that the other one is Randy but gets no clue whatsoever of where they're taking her.

Which — does it really matter anyway?

But then the realization breaks in that her family won't even know where she is, that maybe there won't even be a body left for them to bury. Panic flows in, hectic in its disorganized stream.

"Before you... Can I... just leave a message for my kids?" she asks, clearing her throat in an attempt at concealing that she's already out of breath.

The man behind the wheel sneers, and seriously, what is even _funny_ in that?

"Relax. Ya ain't gonna die tonight. Unless you don't behave."

She doesn't have time to process this answer before they park in front of a hotel downtown and she shivers. If she 'behaves'... doing _what_ , exactly? And yes. Obviously, _obviously_ , a twisted mind could claim whatever they want from someone hanging to such a death hook as she does. But is that really how deep she's fallen?

The place is clean, fancy almost. It doesn't exude the shabbiness she'd instinctively associate to — well, whatever they have in mind for her. The silence in the elevator is deafening and she catches herself vaguely wondering if they'll wait for their turn or... _have fun_ simultaneously. Mick and Randy don't seem particularly excited, though. If anything, they just display the slightly annoyed boredom of another day at the office.

Although maybe she's just gripping any clue she finds to reassure herself.

They drag her with them through some impersonal corridor until they stop in front of a white door with the number 301 screwed in golden metallic letters in the wooden panel. Mick stretches an arm in front of her, the back of his hand brushing her waist as he inserts a keycard into a slot and he pushes her inside.

It takes her a while to register what's happening in front of her.

It's a... a medicalized room. A king-size bed stands in the middle, guarded by an army of perfusion racks, monitors beeping quietly in the back. A few people are gathered near the opposite wall, speaking low and raising unsurprised eyes at them.

And inside the bed — she doesn't have to look. Really.

Doesn't want to.

She just _knows_. To the rotting bones and tattooed skull that she used to picture, her mind suddenly adds fresh muscles, veins and arteries, warm blood running and bringing the otherwise inert human machinery to life. Because it's — _him_. Has to be. And...

Alive.

She nervously swallows, pushes the implications aside for later processing. She doesn't have the luxury to _think_ right now, not when she needs all her energy to just... stand. She turns to Mick, still lost at sea for the most part. As usual, he doesn't humor her with a conversation.

"You said you wanted to help," he says with a severe nod before she has time to speak.

"I didn't—" she trails off before she remembers when she said it. And to whom. How it all — "I don't understand..." she mutters.

She understands. She does. She just really hopes that she misinterpreted the situation. She — hell, right now she'd rather go with the alternative option she pictured in the car instead of... of _this_.

"You'll do the night shifts. Our guy just had a family emergency upstate," Mick grunts in her back, bringing the final stab to her faltering hopes of misunderstanding.

"I don't... I'm not a _doctor!_ " she protests.

And she can't... do that. Not for... with... _to_ him.

Mick shakes his head.

"Don't need to. Keisha will show you."

He roughly pushes her towards the bed and Beth trips, her feet having apparently already sprouted roots in the carpeted floor. She doesn't want to move. Doesn't want to _see_. It's as if all the nightmares that she hasn't had have all suddenly risen, painting the inner theater of her mind with blood and darkness, filling her ears with gunshots and ringing. But Mick doesn't care, and his exasperated sigh is so loud that she registers it above the limbo in her head. He yanks her by the arm, forces her to stand by the bed, and — well. Closing her eyes would be ridiculous at this point.

He... He looks so _pale_. Fragile, curled up as he is under the sheet, drinking life directly in his veins from the tip of a needle. It's the first thought that crosses her mind before he opens his eyes and his gaze drills literal holes in her skull. Anger and hatred spill out of him, soak the sheets, leak down on the carpet, drip along the walls, pour over her head a shower of contempt and dissolve her like acid.

It's almost shocking, how much he hates her.

"Why'd you bring her here?"

An exhausted croak, so different from everything she's been used to hear coming from his mouth that she has to fight the urge to run away from this, from this crouched shadow of a man lying in front of her, the crippled reality she created. She can feel Mick stiffen behind her, radiating with exasperation before he lets out a weary sigh.

"So you'd stop askin' 'bout her."

Something pained passes in Ri— _his_ eyes. A flash she has no time to question nor analyze, as a young Black girl detaches from the people regrouped in the back to join them and starts talking to her about perfusions, and needles, and dressings, and Beth is on autopilot now, her trained brain methodically storing and sorting each piece of information for later.

Maybe it only lasts five minutes, maybe thirty. Beth doesn't know and it doesn't matter, but everything's quiet at some point. The girl — Keisha — has left, as the other people in the room. Mick and Randy are playing cards in a corner, not even trying to hide the cautious glances they cast her once in a while.

It's almost laughable, how foolish it seems for them to have brought the fox in the henhouse while the cock is down.

But.

It's not like she'd even try anything. Although they don't _know_ that.

He's asleep for now and it's not like she has any desire to contemplate him, so she just takes a seat and waits, quite unsure of what to do with her hands. With herself. She remembers something about checking the monitors once in a while, but everything sounds in order, regular beeps tearing through the silence of the night. She wonders how long she's supposed to stay.

Her mind tiptoes around the edges of the pit where she's safely thrown every thought stamped with a 'to process later' label. Now is as a good time as ever, but it's just too much. She reckons after an undefined amount of time that she's probably in shock. Tries to distract herself with something else, anything. Replays this week's meal schedule in her mind, checks her mental grocery list. These are things under control, precise facts she still has a grasp on.

Her eyes catch hints of motion under the sheets and she sees him waking up, his face scrunched with discomfort and pain as his eyelids flutter and chase the sleep away.

And then he slightly turns his head, searching, until his irises focus a laser beam of anger on her face.

"Missed me?"

His voice is hoarse, croaking, but she recognizes the venomous undertone. Only this time it's devoid of its usual playful irony, the only thing that made it bearable. Back in the days, Rio could have announced to her that he was about to murder her and she'd have left this world under the impression that he was hitting on her.

But this —

This is the cold rage of someone else that she doesn't know.

And it feels weird to realize that the last time he actually talked to her there was a gun between them. That asking the very person who pulled the trigger on you if they missed you is probably the most inappropriate yet dramatic interaction opener.

She would roll her eyes at this — does he think that he's in any position to make punchlines? — if she wasn't so scared of his gaze.

She vaguely remembers Keisha telling her that he's often thirsty when he wakes up, and judging from his raspy voice, his throat is definitely dry. She gets up, pours a glass of water, diligently brings it to him. Anything to avoid the burning of his eyes, the weight of the question silently hanging between them.

"Are you... Do you want water?" she asks, trying to hide the shaking in her voice.

He winces in disgust as she walks closer, shakes his head.

"Nah."

She drops the glass on the nearest flat surface, flees back to her chair. Manifestly, her job mostly consists of attending to his immediate needs, so she guesses there's not much else she can do at the moment. She settles comfortably, feels the beginning of tiredness pulling at her bones. It's 2 am after all.

He gives her five seconds of rest before he says, "Yo, I'm thirsty."

Her eyes snap back at his self-satisfied grimace, although she knows what he's doing. He's being childish. And that's... well, that's something she's been training for over the past decade.

"You just told me you didn't want to drink," she scolds with her best mom-ish brow creasing.

"Guess I changed my mind."

There's a mean light dancing in his pupils, a joy born from humiliation and powerlessness that makes her sick. But still, she complies. With a sigh, she gets up and picks the glass. Keisha said that he can't drink or eat by himself yet, and the prospect of... of _feeding_ him is too much to handle right now. She can barely bear his sight, she's not going to touch him.

But she... she has to. She slips a hand behind his neck to straighten his head a little, tries not to think about how his skin feels under her palm, focus on being gentle enough that she won't cause more pain than she already has, but not too gentle that she'll make him think that she's comfortable with this. She brings the rim of the glass against his parted lips, almost recoils at the hatred in his eyes when they cross hers. But of all the details she can register on his face, the uneven shaving of his beard is probably the one that tightens her chest the most.

He drinks one, two sips, and closes his mouth with a disgusted pout, sending her back to the chair with one nod. And then lets maybe half a minute go before he groans, "More," a lazy yet pained grin on his lips, and she internally rolls her eyes.

He repeats the pattern five more times before he gets tired of torturing her for the night.

And it's not that she doesn't... _get_ it. The revenge. The power he has over her here and now, even when he seems barely able to move his own little finger. But it still makes her sick. He plays similar tricks a couple of times before he falls back asleep for good, and she's long lost any awareness of time when Mick pats her arm, waking her up from the half-somnolence she's fallen into. Time to go.

She doesn't even give one last look to the quiet shape lying on the bed on her way out.

Mick drops her off in front of her house, barely grunts a goodbye before he adds something about picking her up in the late evening tomorrow and she swallows her protest back. It's 5 am and she doesn't have the energy for that. It will be tomorrow Beth's problem.

Plus it's not like this is going to last, right? Obviously she's only a temporary fix to a temporary situation. How many days before their regular nurse comes back? It surely can't top a week.

Apparently it can, and will, top a week. That's in substance what she understands from Mick's answer to that simple question, and the rest of his speech is lost in the mail because her conscience just shuts down. Maybe that's one of the reasons why the second shift is worse than the first. She's still dragging with her the exhaustion of her previous sleepless night, and it takes her all her focus to not mess up with her regardless overall simple instructions.

And he's — not helping. To put it nicely.

"Must be temptin', huh?" he drawls, as she's plugging a new perfusion bag into the small pipe taped on his wrist and connected to the vein of his hand. "Bein' here, only one step away from finishin' me?"

"Please stop it," she mutters, eyes lowered.

Begs, even, trying to keep her voice steady.

Trying also not to catch Mick's attention. But _he_ won't let her get away with it. Won't stop pulling at her nerves and pushing her limits, toeing the red line she just knows she'll never cross again. And she swallows the yelling back down her throat, because she doesn't know how far she will go if she unleashes the desperate beast that she can already hear roaring in her chest.

And she's got no desire to find out.

She breaks down at the end of the third night. Not — well, not in front of _him_.

"I... I can't do this," she tells Mick as they're waiting for the elevator.

And she hates the watery plea in her voice, despises the tears threatening to drop from her eyelashes, but she just can't help it. She's barely slept over the past three days of this neverending nightmare she seems to have fallen into. 

Mick clicks his tongue, pulls at the sides of his too tiny jacket to negligently reveal his gun, nested at his waistband.

"Yeah, you do as you told," he scolds her in a raspy statement.

But. It's been a long time since she's stopped being afraid of guns shown off like some sort of strange power parade.

"Look," she insists, trying to stay calm, "he doesn't want me here. I don't want to be here. Can we just... settle this and part ways?"

And really, what has gotten into her that she's talking to him like he's in any way _reasonable?_ Mick sighs, his gaze stubbornly turned upwards, and God, why is this elevator taking so long?

"You gonna keep comin' here," he states as the elevator doors open, and she can tell that his answer is definitive. "So ya better sort your shit out, yeah?" he only adds before they step inside, his hand gripping her forearm and yanking her forward a little bit harsher than usual.

And it's really the motion, this angry tug, rather than his words, that closes the discussion.

It's a safe assertion to say that Beth's life could be described as a succession of downgrades. Little things, more or less inconveniencing, that she can't shake off her back and will tarnish her daily habits, but subtly enough to keep them bearable. Like that day when she knew with absolute certainty that college wouldn't be an option for her, for instance. One of the earliest entities in that procession of dreams that life would eventually force her to drop in the trash. 

Then there was that evening when a sobbing Annie showed up at her door, a pregnancy test in one hand, a bottle of vodka in the other — a latter item Beth instantly stored on the higher shelf in the kitchen and then refused to treat her sister with anything else than pops or water from that moment on. Not that she nourishes any grief towards her beloved nephew, though. She doesn't. When she's looking back on those days, he might even be the best thing that happened to Annie. Given the circumstances, at least. God knows where her sister would be at now if that callback from reality hadn't knocked at her door.

But — she never told Annie that she'd been re-envisioning her life by then. Wondering if she hadn't gotten married too young and given up on dreams that were still reachable. Dean and she weren't in a good place at that moment, and she'd been secretly budgeting the costs for a potential divorce, and maybe some community college before she'd get herself a job. And... and it was doable. She had some savings to cover it. At least until she had a teenage mother to support.

So she clung to Dean instead, worked harder on their relationship, and stepped into motherhood herself — something she'd delayed for so long for a _reason_. Incidentally that was the moment when she waved an unanticipated farewell to sleep. For a good decade at least. Another — minor, but still itchy — inconvenience. And then, ever since she robbed that Fine & Frugal place, she's gotten used to living with that permanent threat above her head, the fear constantly nested somewhere deep in her belly, although the thrill of excitement in its immediate neighborhood makes her forget about it most of the time. It's just another alteration in her life that she adjusted to.

And through all of these minor but stinging slaps in the face of her peace of mind, she's always acted according to her mother's favorite saying. She accepted these, sometimes reluctantly, and integrated them as components of the renewed design of her life.

So spending her nights nursing a nemesis she tried to kill and whose eyes tell her that he'd strangle her in the minute if he had the strength for it? She gets used to it _really_ fast. It's just another one of those cosmic jokes she's never really understood. God, she must have been a fabulous asshole in her former life to deserve such karmic revenge.

So once again, she falls into this morbid routine, resignation tattooed over her features. It's just another cloud in her sky, although a particularly dark one. She insists to Dean that she has insomnia and needs a separate bedroom for a while. Feeds him with half a sleeping pill every evening so he won't hear her sneak out and in the house during the night.

Meanwhile gang-wise, it looks like she earns herself some trust because eventually Mick and Randy don't stay constantly in the room with her. _Them_. Her guards both often leave the room to run some errands of their own before Mick comes back to pick her up and bring her home. Soon she doesn't even see Randy anymore.

It's — odd, really. That Mick would trust her with the half-alive man in the room, after what happened. That Ri— _he_ would allow it. But. It is what it is. She's got no eagerness to question this more than she should. Eventually she finds out that he's got even more latitude to torture her with no witnesses around.

He keeps taunting her, cruelly reminding her of her actions, daring her to finish him, once and for all. Constantly bringing it up, until the idea crawls under her skull and gnaws at her brain. Unavoidable.

And it's just crazy, how every time she grabs a pillow to put behind his back she consciously makes that choice to not use it for another purpose. How the opportunity crosses her mind and her fingers prickle with accidental mistake whenever she's supposed to change his perfusion bag. How every time he falls into a nightmare-less sleep, she thinks about how easy it would be to end this situation.

But she never goes all the way through the temptation. This wouldn't lead her anywhere alive, to begin with. And even if it did, she — well there's a difference between deviating a threat and just... kicking a man down.

She cannot. Do that.

Sometimes when Mick brings her in there's another protagonist in the room, a lady in her fifties with a strict grey bun tied at the back of her head and the severe glasses of a school teacher. A doctor, Beth soon identifies. Or at least a trained nurse. Someone with actual... degrees, who can perform more than plug a pipe into a hollow needle or bring additional cushioning to a sore back.

She generally never stays long after Beth's arrival and mostly ignores her.

Except once. Beth's just come in and there's an abnormal urgency in the demeanor of Mrs. Hernandez — that's at least the name Beth is pretty positive she caught from eavesdropping random conversations. She doesn't seem stressed about the... the patient in the bed, though, it mostly looks like the lady is just in a hurry to leave for whatever reasons that Beth has no interest in knowing about.

"Crap, I forgot to change those dressings!" the woman abruptly curses under her breath on her way out. "I have to go now, can you do it, sunshine?" she demands more than she asks, pointing a bony finger at Beth.

And.

No.

No. No. No. Anything but that.

She shakes her head, stammering, "But I don't know how to—"

"Oh but _he_ knows!"

Mrs. Hernandez vigorously nods towards the bed and leaves without further indication, as if it was a settled thing.

And not the biggest bump on this torturous road.

For a while, Beth acts like nothing happened. Hopes it won't kill him if this issue isn't addressed until morning. Until someone else, anyone, takes over her duties. And, well. If it _does_ cause him an infection or anything, it wouldn't be like killing him with her bare hands, would it? Not everyone gets to recover from such serious injuries. Those things happen.

But of course he won't give her that. She's barely been in for an hour before he asks.

"You're s'posed to change my dressing, yeah?"

She rolls her eyes, her body stiffening as if preparing for a close fight.

"And you're supposed to help me through it, aren't you?"

He lets out a throaty noise sounding like agreement, his jaw twitching as he gives her a minimalistic nod. And from the look in his eyes, she can tell that's he's as enthusiastic about this as she is.

"Gotta wash your hands first," he murmurs.

And as she steps closer to the bed she does as she's told. Follows his instructions in order to delicately remove the old dressing's canvas of tape and gauze. And she's been pretty much on autopilot until then, but she can't help when the realization kicks in.

Her fingers are trembling when she flips the last layer of gauze, and she —

She can't.

She swallows frantically to repress the bile already rising, she wants to look away, to _run_ away—

"Elizabeth."

She can't stop her eyes from snapping back at his, the anthracite light of cold anger still burning in the dark pupils, but mixed with a new turmoil. A softer one. Sympathy, perhaps. Understanding, at the very least.

Or maybe she just wishes that's what it is.

She holds his gaze interrogatively for what feels like an eternity until he finally drops, annoyance piercing in his voice, "Go on."

It's both worse and better than she expected. The flesh is puffy, purple in places, stitches that surgery left behind clearly visible and forming multiple trails of black dashes over the bruised skin, traces of blood and probably other fluids still slightly leaking at the seams.

It's— 

Awful. Sickening.

_Heartbreaking._

But at the same time there's no room left for imagination anymore. No panicked expectation that the bullets will jump in her face like tiny silver boomerangs. It's — _this_ , and now she can't conjure any spookier assumption anymore.

"Clean it."

The order yanks her out of her breathless contemplation and she forces herself out of her reluctance to _touch_ him. She tries to take deep breaths, but the smell has her almost retching, the metallic odor of blood mixing with the bland scent of the saline solution in a fragrance that reminds her of hospitals and deaths. Births. Whatever.

She can tell that he's attentively following her every move, holding his breath almost, his eyes lowered at their maximum to catch the sight of her hands. In her peripheral vision she sees him wincing at the sting when she applies the antiseptic ointment he indicated her.

"Sorry..." she mutters under her breath, panicking almost, and it slips out like a curse.

"S'nothing."

And he's trying to reassure her — for his own safety probably, he's got more to lose at her trembling hands than she has — but she knows from his broken breath, the slight tension edging in his voice, that it's _not_ nothing.

And even if she doesn't shelter particularly affectionate feelings towards him at the moment, well. She's not sadistic either. She doesn't want to hurt him because of inexperienced fingers, but she can't stop herself from shaking and —

His valid hand catches her by the elbow, the sharp move almost ripping the needle out of the back of his hand. He squeezes her arm, ungentle, until she looks at him.

"Stop. Thinkin'," he hisses. 

She nods, feebly. Sinks her teeth in her bottom lip with resolution.

"Okay. How do I patch it?"

And except for the concise directions he delivers, the rest of the night happens in a vaguely comfortable silence.

Sometimes, Mick tells her that he won't pick her up on the next evening, that she gets a night off. Sort of. And eventually her cloudy intellect realizes that those nights are probably the ones when someone else they don't want her to see pays a visit. She jumps to a conclusion shaped as a child-sized button-up and toothless smile, but soon rejects it. Family is what days are for. If it's the middle of the night it has to be something — someone — else. And the epiphany pierces the thick coat of snow covering her exhausted brain.

There were three of them in this freaking loft. And only two remained when she ran away, panickily handing the gun to someone whom she believed by then would finish the job for her, varnish it with some legal endorsement.

But. _He_ is alive. And taken care of.

"How did you. Make it."

It's the first thing she says the next time she's on nursing duty.

His lips curve into an almost cheerful smile that still doesn't reach his eyes. He chuckles. Instantly hisses in pain as a result and she mentally sympathizes with him, with his suffering. She knows how it feels, when every part of the body is sore from too many hours of pain. It took her 21 agonizing hours of labor when Kenny —

"Took you long enough, huh?"

For a second she's scared that she thought out loud before she realizes that he's alluding to what she said before. Without an actual answer, but he doesn't seem decided to reveal more than what she already figured. And all things considered... she's not particularly eager either to dive once again in the memories of that night. To ask about what sordid bargain got him out of there, because there's no way a federal agent wouldn't take that opportunity.

Which... throws a different kind of light, all of a sudden.

"Am I... the prize?" she asks, suddenly aware of the possibility.

Anger flashes in his eyes and he sneers, staring at the bedsheet.

"You wish..." he drawls, almost regretful. He looks back at her before he announces, "But sweetheart you ain't that important, trust me."

And frankly, she can't tell if it comes out as a disappointment or a relief.

For both of them.

"Hello, Earth to Beth?"

Annie's fingers snap in front of her, and Beth tries to focus harder. She's started... dozing off, lately. During daytime. She generally can't bring herself to sleep when she gets home after her exhausting nights of nursing. And then the morning rises and it's a brand new day in the sleepless hell that has become her life.

She mumbles an apology but Annie's attention has already switched to her animated conversation with Ruby, who apparently figured out last night the exact nail polish combination to recreate as good as new federal bills.

Something... _Creamsicle_ something. She vainly tries to rewind the tape of their conversation in her mind, hoping for a detail she could pick to maintain the illusion that she's been listening.

Beth hasn't told the girls about... her _third_ job. The night one. She just — she can't tell them about it. Not yet, at least. She wouldn't be able to handle the worry that would inevitably shade their features. He's alive. It doesn't take a genius to do the math and conclude that she's dead. Virtually.

Even Annie would compute that in a heartbeat. And Beth cannot deal with her sister and her best friend's reactions to this right now. She's got no room nor spare energy to fight the way they'll inevitably start acting around her, whispering as if she were a patient with terminal cancer. To accept the tears in their eyes and the lumps in their throats. To listen to the stupid escaping plans they'll inevitably make up. To break their hearts with a saddened headshake when they'll suggest that she just 'unplugs' him — Annie will definitely add air-quotes to this — while she still can do it.

But the terrifying irony here is that she can't tell them either why they should cancel their little manufacturing operation. It's not safe, attempting to build a criminal empire when she's right under the scrutiny of the exact two people who will merrily send her away for good at the first and smallest suspicion.

Which is... probably the only thing these two have in common, a huge one though — their obsession with her.

"I told you that she wouldn't be 'psyched' with your idea!" Ruby scolds.

"It was worth a try!" Annie retorts with energy, shaking the half-blonde half-dark length of her hair and pointing an accusatory finger at Ruby. Or — God knows what she means with her hands sometimes.

"Guys, guys..." Beth tries in an unsuccessful attempt at bringing some _quiet_ back in the house.

But Annie and Ruby are now bantering about some vague acquaintance of Annie's that Ruby had as a customer at the salon and whose eating habits are apparently worth the discussion and Beth shakes her head, turns around to make some more coffee. For tonight, mostly. She is probably going to die otherwise.

"And guess what she told me then about celery?" Annie's voice shrieks from the living room while Beth pours the coffee in a thermos bottle.

And adds a generous serving of bourbon after a short hesitation.

"I swear to God, this chick is _mental_ ," Ruby sings the last word on a high-pitched note with widened eyes as Beth joins them, absent-mindedly stirring the mug of coffee she saved for right now.

And — Beth loves them more than anything, she really does. But sometimes she feels so far away from them. Disconnected.

That night, Mrs. Hernandez is here when Beth enters the room, and she instantly regrets not having gulped down at least half of her thermos on the ride in. Although the coffee wouldn't probably be enough to mask the smell of booze in her breath. But she can't help it. This woman kind of terrifies her.

And she's got — well. Her bad news face.

It's not that Beth sees her often, though. But she's always been able to tell the general mood in the room by only looking at that woman's expression.

Tonight's isn't bad _bad_ though. Concerned might be a better-suited word, and Beth soon catches from a few words exchanged with Mick — as usual, Beth is left out of _any_ conversation — that it's only a check-up visit. But a painful one.

She doesn't have time to really wonder about what is about to happen as Mrs. Hernandez nudges her on the right side of the bed for God knows which reasons — whether she's supposed to help or not interfere remains an unsolved question — and immediately puts herself to work, revealing in one smooth move the bandaged chest hidden under the sheet.

Beth hasn't had to change his dressing so many times after that first introduction, but she knows that the wounds are healing properly, the scars from surgery still plainly visible but healthy.

"Lovely," the doctor whispers at the sight, audibly content with her patient's cicatrization. "Now let's see if it's all lovely inside as well, shall we?" she asks, her voice falsely cheerful as she locks eyes with him.

He feebly nods, grimacing, and Beth sucks in a breath when she realizes what Mrs. Hernandez is talking about. Palpation for internal abscesses and signs of infection. The doctor's fingers poke at the flesh, dig deep under the muscles and something snaps inside of Beth at the reality of what's happening in front of her.

He doesn't let out much more than a hoarse hiss, but in the mess of the sheet his hand finds hers and clutches, clutches, clutches... and she lets him. She has to put her free hand in front of her own mouth to cover her gasp and not scream in pain as his nails rake her skin, his fingers sinking deep and almost tearing apart the delicate assembling of tiny bones and fragile tendons.

"Normal skin elasticity... No localized warmth... All good," Mrs. Hernandez eventually decides, her grey eyebrows pinched in concentration.

There are bright red moon crescents carved into the back of Beth's hand when he lets go of her, but she knows that he's only transferred an infinitesimal portion of his own pain. The one he owes her for.

But maybe it was the whole point of this. To show her. At least she knows him enough to be positive that inflicting himself such a massive amount of pain just to prove a point isn't an obstacle in the eyes of his devious mind.

And she doesn't have the smallest crumb of evidence that her hand was anything else for him but the closest clutchable item in the room, a solid mass his fingers encountered while he was fumbling with the sheet, blinded with pain, but she can't help reading into it. Wondering.

On a more pragmatic side of things, she's glad she still has some loaded coffee to drink. And okay, she _knows_ that it's probably not a recommended thing, to get wasted before performing medical acts, but. She needs this.

On the next day there are dark, purple bruises on the back of her hand, the color spreading far between her knuckles, and she disguises it under rubber gloves when Dean shows up for breakfast.

But she won't hide it from _him_. The evidence that he touched her, even if it hurt. And still does. She can see the way his pupils slightly widen when he catches sight of it the first time she helps him drinking. How he stares at her hand for way too long, a fascinating ballet of mixed reactions happening behind his darkened eyes.

He doesn't say anything though. But she reckons he's acting softer with her than his usual on that night.

He seems to enjoy playing hot and cold with her anyway.

Sometimes he'll almost be nice with her for a few nights. Charming. Docile even. Until she'll let her guard drop an inch down and that's when he'll strike, venomous, ask her if she's done any progress with her aim or whatever sick joke his mind will have come up with.

And the thing is, she can't make herself keep her defenses up when he's soft. It's — it's too hard.

It reminds her of simpler, inaccessible times, and she's too tired to find the energy to fight the nostalgia. Even when she knows that it won't do her any good.

"So you went 'round my kid, huh?" he negligently drops one night, and it feels like all the warmth in the room has suddenly been sucked in by some frozen vacuum cleaner, the air crystallizing between them and forming a treacherous net of edgy ice, as pointy and fragile as thin glass. The kind her voice could break like crystal.

This is it. He's been too good to be true lately, and she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop, drowned in unpredictability. And she's known from the start, from Mick's comment the first time he brought her here, that this would come up at some point.

She swallows nervously. There's playfulness flickering in his eyes, but she knows that it's only the lighter's flame before the blast.

"I, um —"

"You enjoy lyin' to people and watchin' the damage you've done?" he cuts her, rougher.

His jaw rocks with restrained anger and she blinks desperately to push her tears back in the safety of her body.

"No, I —"

"What was next, dancin' on my grave?"

His growl is threatening this time. 

"It's not —" she trails off, trying to explain, but he cuts her again.

Which shouldn't be the most upsetting thing here but it just is.

"You get off on —"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, will you just let me speak?" she shouts.

She's _tried_ to keep calm, but he just... keeps pushing at her buttons, and it's infuriating, and so _unfair_ , the way he portrays the situation.

Her outburst seems to surprise him, and he tilts his head, considering. They stare at each other for a moment until he jerks his chin out, waiting for her to speak.

Except that she... she can't. There's a lump in her throat that won't budge and she doesn't know what else there is to say on the fuming rubble of their eternal what could have been.

"You fuckin' _shot_ me," he eventually lets out when he realizes that she won't speak.

"You kidnapped me!" she protests, betrayal rising in her throat like bile and leaving its sour taste in its wake, "You said I was just work!"

It all unpacks at the same time, memories she'd rather have forgotten, impalpable wounds she ignored with the stupid belief that they would heal, words she wishes she had withheld. Or said. She doesn't know anymore.

She can't hold her tears back this time and something slightly alters on his face. Not — well, he doesn't look sorry nor repentant. At all. But perhaps there's a quiver of knowledge that he's gone too far this time. Further than whatever plan he'd cooked for her tonight, at least.

A flash of understanding briefly flickers on his face and he makes this little side nod with his head that she doesn't get.

Doesn't _want to_ get.

"C'm'ere."

Absolutely not. She won't lie in a bed with him. Not after —

But.

She's _exhausted_. And this plastic chair has already ruined her back. And the sheets look so soft. And he — doesn't look like he's going to murder her in the next minute.

So she steps closer, slowly, kicks her shoes off and lies down, cautious to put as much distance between the two of them as she can. The king-size bed allows that, fortunately.

She sniffles, avoiding his eyes, tries to focus on her own rest.

And she expects him to pull another torturing trick of his, but he seems to be done for the night. He doesn't talk to her, or move, or give any insight that he's acknowledged her presence by his side at all. Until... she's half-asleep already when she feels the tiny, timid pull. And — well. He's always liked playing with her hair, hasn't he?

There's a timid smile tugging at the corners of her lips when she sinks for good into oblivion.

"Elizabeth."

The imperative urgency wakes her up and then she needs a minute to remember why she's lying in a bed with _him_. He gives her a slightly annoyed look, and she blinks, confused.

"Gonna be time soon."

He waves his head impatiently and — yeah. It's probably better if Mick doesn't find her like this when he picks her up.

It doesn't become a habit. No, that would be _insane_. But — once in a while, he lets her lie down with him. Get some rest.

And she's in no condition to refuse. She's _exhausted_. To a point that she didn't even know existed, even right after Emma was born — so shortly after Danny that she felt like she'd barely stopped breastfeeding at the time — and the notion of sleep had just vanished from her vocabulary for months, with three young children of different ages to take care of.

This is different, though. There's no shot of hormonal cocktail to keep her awake, no sensation of fulfillment attached to the task and making it worth it.

She's so tired she sometimes cries about nothing, just unhinges the pressure. Not in front of anyone, of course. Especially him. No, he doesn't get to know that.

But she never turns him down when he offers her the left half of the bed. She doesn't always fall asleep, but it's the only space where she feels like she can drop the act and just rest, even with her eyes wide open.

Sometimes he falls asleep by her side too, and she promises herself that one day she'll dare to watch him sleep, see what he looks like.

"You think 'bout it sometimes?" he once asks, as they're lying side by side.

She's staring at the darkness in front of her, the greenish glow coming from the monitors' screens the only source of light. She doesn't need to double-check to know what _it_ is, the lascivious laziness in his voice speaks for itself. She slightly tilts her head still, gives him a quick glance, absorbs the greedy light in his eyes. For the first time in what feels like forever he looks like — himself. Sort of.

She doesn't dignify his comment with an answer, though. It's not a discussion territory she's willing to enter. She can't admit... that. That she's been thinking of it. More than she should have. Especially given the circumstances.

"You touch yourself thinkin' of me?"

_Yes._

"No!" she protests, half jumping off the bed at the simple suggestion.

Because she can't — Not after...

"Nuh?"

She rolls her eyes back at him, ready to retort with some exasperated and sour comment but there's something in the way he raises his brow when their eyes meet again, gives her body an up-and-down appreciative glance, that shuts the protest up her throat.

The dim ambient light casts a strange augury to his features, shadows lingering across his cheekbones, the moist on his mouth catching sparkles of the intermittent flashes on the monitors.

A smirk blossoms on Rio's lips and for like a second the atmosphere feels like... _before_. And Beth catches herself staring at his mouth for longer than strict decency would allow.

"Show me," he growls in a low, heavy whisper.

The words roll off his tongue to spread on her skin, hot and sticky, and something dark awakes inside of her, an unhealthy thrill.

"I don't—" she trails off.

"Show me."

His tongue peeks out to wet his lips, his eyes are burning cold, and she's pretty sure she's losing a piece of sanity at the demand. The sight. Whatever.

With trembling fingers, she works the first buttons of her blouse with one hand, busies the other with the zip of her jeans. In autopilot, she slips a hand under her bra, pinches a nipple as she presses two fingers against her clit with practiced angle and pressure.

And then —

Then what? She feels silly. It won't — can't — work this way.

"I don't think I can —" she starts.

"Yeah you will, Elizabeth."

Her purred name shoots a long-forgotten shiver down her spine, resonates through her bones, stirs the blood in her veins until it's rushing out of control. She feels her cheek burns, can't tell if it's more out of embarrassment or flaring up.

She lets out an involuntary gasp, squeezes her own breast as her fingertips work harder, and she closes her eyes on the vision of his smooth chest hovering over her, his necklace ebbing and flowing between her breasts as he pushed, and pushed, and pushed, in an old memory. Was it that long ago, though? It doesn't matter. The colors have aged, faded like a sepia picture now.

Her hips buck a little when she replays the scene of his tongue tracing a sloppy line over her stomach from her belly button to a front-line of blonde cropped hair.

She isn't totally gone on her trip down memory lane though. She can still hear his loud breathing by her side, can't totally forget where she is, _who_ she's with, and it's hard to focus but she insists, chases a release that she's quite deserved after all the pain. She needs to feel something, _anything_ , other than grief, and fear, and exhaustion.

His tongue in her mouth pokes at the edge of her conscience and she growls softly at the memory, the feeling still vivid despite having been played in the theater of her mind more times than she's willing to admit. She parts her lips, tongue darting out and meeting his ghost, while her hand has accelerated its motion, smearing the wetness and teasing, teasing, teasing...

She's faltering, standing on top of the edge, when his voice snaps, makes its way through the hooded cloud in her mind, clear as a foghorn.

"Look at me."

And it's too late, and she's falling already when she opens her eyes, because she's too far gone to even _think_ , let alone _remember_ why this is a mistake. And she comes, hard, on the sight of what she's done to him, on the cold, cruel expression on his face, on his hatred. Her body shudders under the earthquake when the seismic waves of her release meet with the tremor of her chest as her orgasm ends its course in a sob that seems to never end.

There's a mean, satisfied light dancing in his eyes when it's over, the triumph of having forced her clear admission that she still wants him despite — everything, and she retracts her hands from under her clothes as if she'd burned herself on the stove. This is so fucked up. Unhealthy. And yet her hips are still rolling, begging for more, her mind points out that he's _right here_ , her fantasy in the flesh.

She looks away and falls into a teary sleep right after, exhaustion taking over. And maybe it's for the best.

They never mention this. After. But soon she notices that he's generally acting out less harsh around her than he used to. Although maybe it's just because of his growingly regained autonomy. God knows he's been longing for it. Dean was grumpy too after having been shot. She remembers that. Depending entirely on her, even for the smaller task, it — well, she can see how frustrating that must be.

And she didn't expect to feel this way, but when she overhears mumbled fragments of conversation between him and Mick about walking reeducation sessions she's... well, happy might be a little over the top. Don't push this too far. But yeah. She's glad.

Apparently he's also exercising his upper limbs because at some point a partially built model airplane makes an appearance in a corner of the room, and there are a few more pieces glued to it night after night.

It's just — good for him, after all the pain. And she wouldn't admit it — to whom, anyway? — but there's a part of her that just rejoices in the prospect of witnessing his slow journey towards full recovery.

And then one night, when Mick drops her at dawn in front of the house he doesn't immediately take off as he usually does. 

He holds her interrogative gaze for maybe ten seconds before he says, "I won't pick ya up tomorrow."

"Oh, okay. I'll see you in two days, then," she shrugs.

And really, she could use the extra sleep. But there's something... _saddened_ in the way he shakes his head.

"Nah... Your services are no longer needed," he informs her before he leaves, the tires screeching against the pavement for the sake of stupid theatrics.

And it's — unexpected.

But...

It's over. The nightmare is over. And she — she should be relieved.

She should.

She exhales, tries to keep the wind of panic in her lungs under control. Ends up in a miserable hiccup.

She can't believe she never watched him sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

"That's not how that works."

The viscous stream of coffee puddles in a disgusting sticky pool in front of the memorial, and Annie scowls at Ruby's reprobation without an ounce of self-consciousness.

Beth sighs. Clearly the two of them have no idea of the meaning of this, beyond the obvious loss they're contemplating. He's back. And ready to settle some accounts, apparently. And the truth is... Beth doesn't know at this point if she's still one. Can't tell if what she did for weeks provided enough of a repair to clean her debt. She hasn't seen him, hasn't heard of him ever since Mick abruptly dismissed her.

But this — this is a clear sign. She'd even take it as a warning sent to her attention if she didn't know better, didn't know that he'd scoff and tell her that she's not _that_ important if she asked.

"You all right?" Annie suddenly asks, vaguely sheepish, and probably misinterpreting her sister's silence.

Ruby pats her shoulder in a comforting motion. "It is really weird," she adds. Confesses. Or maybe underlines.

Or perhaps she's just trying to elicit an answer, anything, from Beth who's standing still in silent contemplation of the flowers and teddy bears. Annie is right by the way. These are an objectively weird trend, although she shouldn't focus on _that_. She probably should tell the girls that he's alive, right? This, right in front of them, it can't be a coincidence.

She crouches down, stares intensely at Turner's face on the small framed picture nested in the middle of the roses. He'd been nosy, recently. Had paid her a visit at the gift cards store, but none of them had alluded to _him_ , both keeping the pretense on the official story. And maybe... Maybe Turner didn't know that she knew. Maybe the secrecy of this whole ballet of nightly visits she wasn't allowed to see was for him. All this time she'd thought that it was for her, but... Rio hadn't looked _that_ fussy when she'd made it explicitly clear that she'd figured out Turner was involved in his recovery.

However. Maybe it's too soon to make any assumption. Her mind is racing at a fast speed as she assesses the consequences of putting their little operation back on tracks, now that she's off the scrutiny of the FBI — Turner's visit having at least had the perks of providing her with a good excuse to press pause on everything. But now... she can't decide whether that would be a mistake. What if Rio comes for her? But, and okay, it is a huge 'but' — but what if he doesn't? What if he just stays away from her, cuts her off, for good, after she paid that strange tribute he extorted from her? Then there would be no point in worrying Annie and Ruby for nothing. All she wants is to protect them.

"I guess we're back in business," she softly drops, standing up.

She'll wait and see. There's still plenty of time to tell them if things get messy.

She celebrates in her own way on the same night. Pours herself a generous serving of her most top-shelf bourbon, the one she usually saves for Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve only. Fills a bowl with several spoonfuls of vanilla ice-cream stuffed with caramelized pecan nuts and chocolate swirls. Tops it all with whipped cream and crunchy bits of biscuits.

She feels like a rom-com caricature, but that's the kind of treat she spends too much time crafting for the kids to even remember to save some for herself. And she has the house for herself tonight. Dean took the kids at Judith's and the girls weren't available. Beth isn't sure they'd have been in the mood for celebrating someone death's anyway.

She's just dropped the bowl on the coffee table and picked a movie on the DVR when a cold airstream kisses her shoulders and she shivers. The evenings are getting chilly, and she takes a mental note to schedule the boilers' annual check soon. She makes a stop by the kitchen island to refill her already half-empty glass before heading to her bedroom for a shawl. She takes a sip while her other hand fumbles with the wooden drawer, and her mind suddenly lights up at the prospect of a hot bath.

And since she's treating herself tonight, maybe after she could —

"Hey now."

She screams, jumps, drops the glass on the floor where it explodes. All at the same time.

He _has_ to be kidding her.

She turns her head and expectedly meets Rio's eyes, his body casually leaning against the bedroom doorframe as he silently waits for her to pull herself together. There's a gun in his hand and a dark expression on his face, and she wishes her throat hadn't let out this ridiculous whimper at the sight.

Her head is spinning with bourbon, and fear, and anger. But — mostly bourbon, if she's being honest.

"What do you want?" she cautiously asks.

"I don't forgive you," he growls, although this last fact seems pretty clear already, given the dramatic set-up he's come up with.

She's been hilariously wrong to assume that he would just step out of her life for good. That she could get away with what she did to him with a few weeks of patching and cushioning. Might as well try to heal a bullet wound with magic kisses.

"I know," she nods.

The broken glass crushes and cracks under the sole of his shoes as he moves forward and he's on her in a matter of seconds, blocking her against the wall with his body and pressing the gun under her jaw.

She has no idea of whether his intent is murderous or if he just plans on frightening her and giving her a lesson. But she doesn't want to find out, so she tries to push him off her. She's in no mood for a game of strong-armed negotiation. She's angry, to say the least. Frustrated in her plans, upset that she's broken one of her favorite bourbon glasses and has a mess of splinters to clean. Maybe she's a little scared too.

He attempts to catch her wrist as soon as she struggles back, his hips pressing her harder into the wall, and it's — a reflex, really. Her mind is blinded with panic and rage when she fights him back, because she has no other choice. And it's unclear, even to herself, how intently she pokes _that_ shoulder. It must be. But — maybe she's just hitting wherever she can, her fingers curved like claws and whipping the space in front of her like a crazy cat.

The scream he lets out is _inhuman_. He lets go of her, immediately, and the gun drops on the floor with a bang that neither of them register. Because he's instantly folding himself onto his pain like wrinkled paper, his right hand clutching his shoulder, his face crumpled with suffering, and — _pale_. So pale she feels like she's watching a ghost.

And she...

"Sorry sorry sorry sorry..." she drops in a panicked psalmody as she wraps one arm around him, eases him on her bed so he can quietly recover.

He moans, angrily smacks her arm away and she steps back. Scared, almost. Not of him. Of how easily she brought him on his knees. Of the shadow of himself she turned him into.

And it's — heartbreaking, at the very least.

He doesn't even acknowledge her presence anymore, curled on her bed and focused on the rippling waves of pain probably radiating in his body, and she can't _breathe_.

Slowly, so slowly, she makes a beeline to the other side of the bed and sits, waits for him to scream at her, maybe even kick her out of the room. Anything. But he doesn't react so she lies down, careful not to touch him, not to impose her proximity to him, but just — being there. With him. _For_ him, even, if he'll let her.

The silence stretches out for what feels like ages. She can tell that his breathing is even again, that he's overcome the kick, but yet he stays there, motionless. If he wasn't homicidal before, now he must be for sure. She dare not look at him.

But suddenly it cascades out of nowhere, the sound pure and fresh like water around rocks.

He _chuckles_.

And then his voice, tearing up the silence in the relative darkness.

"I shoulda known better. Ain't no good for me, bein' there when your survival instincts kick in."

He — _really?_ She turns a cautious face towards him, bracing herself for whatever game his sick mind has come up with this time.

And, well. The anger is still there, obviously. She's not sure that it's something that will ever go away. But there's — playfulness, maybe. As if he's being a good sport, admitting she won the game this time, although she'll still lose the battle. And her fight or flight _is_ indeed a bit of an overkill sometimes, she can't deny him that.

But he's not mad at her. Not this time. And then she... well, she can't believe that she's doing this, but she rolls her eyes in a mock show of outrage.

"Well, then stop provoking them!"

He _smiles_. Just a little, but it still counts. Stretches his good hand to push her hair back behind her ear from where it has fallen and cascaded over her cheek, and she takes it as a temporary truce offer. Her eyes flutter under his touch, soft for the first time in what feels like years.

His fingers linger for maybe half a minute against her temple, and she's pretty sure that he can feel her pulse beating under her skin, from how hard her heart is pounding in her chest. His hand slides down, strokes her cheek before his fingertips ghost her lips and gently press the dimple in her chin.

There's a flicker of want burning in the warmth of his gaze, and she can't help but think about the countless hours they spent lying side by side during his bed rest. He has to be reminiscing it too. She settles on one side, slips her hands between her cheek and the pillow, watches him openly.

"Do you touch yourself thinking of me, sometimes?" she asks.

His eyes flash in surprise, maybe even indignation. But she doesn't let him get away with it so easily. She jerks a challenging chin.

"Show me."

He gives back defying look for defying look. Swallows lazily with lustful eyes, the sight of his Adam's apple bobbing up and down making her feel dizzy for an instant. Then he nods, his good hand unzipping his pants, and she doesn't miss one second of the show as his fingers wrap around his half-hardness and his hand starts moving, slowly at first, then faster. And faster. He watches her the whole time, licks and bites his lips, even groans a little, until she can't stop herself from slipping a hand into her own underwear.

She bucks her hips, rubs herself against her own fingers with a frustrated moan, and he lets out an appreciative throaty noise, his eyes wide open on the show she's offering. She responds to his lips-licking with soft whimpers and hooded eyes, bites her bottom lip when he groans, gasps when he closes his eyes.

And the game of one-upmanship ends in his long, hoarse moan. His hips jerk, and she greedily watches him come, starts coming at the very moment he closes his eyes.

When their eyes meet again, she recognizes the longing burning in his gaze, because she feels it too, knows that it can't — 

They won't —

What she did put an immovable glass panel between them, buried the heat and replaced it with this strange, anxious desire that neither of them can handle nor acknowledge.

And this was —

She closes her eyes, incapable of staring at the disaster much longer and unwilling to let him see her tears, her shame, her disgust of what just happened, which she can't even regret. Everything between them is too twisted and fucked-up for her to stomach it. Not now.

She doesn't know how long she stays motionless, wallowing over regrets she didn't know she had. She possibly even drowsed a little. But when she reopens her eyes, she guesses that the ice cream has probably long thawed in the bowl, back in the living room, because it's the middle of the night.

And he's gone.

And for a while after that, she doesn't hear from him. Thinks, even, that maybe he's gone for good now, that she won't see him again. 

It's probably a pious vow. 

And honestly — she's not even sure that this is what she wants. She doesn't simmer in uncertainty for very long though. One night he knocks at the door as she's closing the Paper Porcupine, and _of course_ she'd been wrong to even assume the possibility that he would ever let her go.

He asks about the money and suddenly she gets why Gil hasn't replied to her latest texts, and it scares her. Because cleaning a blood debt with sleepless nights of caretaking is one thing. Stepping over his business territory is another. Not that she didn't have plenty of time to anticipate that.

Surprisingly he doesn't murder her right away. He wants to see her process first.

"Show me," he asks, growls even, with the same unhealthy look he'd had when he asked her to touch herself in front of him.

A shade of lustful desire flickers in his eyes. And right now, she can't tell if it's rather induced by her or the money.

It's not that she's left with much of a choice anyway, so she obliges. He watches her dissolve ink and shred paper, waits with her during the boring steps when nothing interesting happens — and watching pulp dry loses its interest after three minutes, believe her she's _tried_ — and stares at her all along as if she were a plate of fries and he hadn't eaten for days.

And it's — 

She shouldn't —

She presses her knees together, tries to ignore the need throbbing between her thighs, the longing in her chest, the heat already painting her cheeks. Refrains herself from biting her lips and staring at his for too long. The air is thick, heavy around them when he comes closer and examines the bills, his lower lip hanging so close, loose, like a honey trap.

"What do you think?" she asks, audibly out of breath and hoping he'll misread it as fear.

And not this ugly desire, the trembling and delicious need to press her thighs together in the nearness of him.

He takes forever to examine the bills, probably purposeful in his pathological need for theatrics and cliffhangers, until he eventually drawls, "I think I need you alive."

The look he gives her is _filthy_ before he exits the room in the instant, leaving her panting with relief and frustration.

It's only a couple of minutes later, while she's driving home, that she catches sight of a ridiculously expensive car in her rearview mirror. And — she tries to ignore the wave of pure lust that shoots through her spine and directly in her womb at the sight. Calm down. Maybe he's taking this road to go home too. After all, she doesn't know where he lives now. Except that when the neighborhood starts to clearly scream picket fence suburbia, she's pretty positive that this is not his brand. When she pulls over in her alley, she observes the G-Wagon parking on the other side of the curb.

She assumes that he's tired of jerking off with her memory as only company. She is. She watches, as his reflection climbs out of the monstrosity, his eyes immediately catching hers in the mirror as he catwalks his way to her front door, his hands buried deep in his pockets, his shoulders tense. There's a question hanging in his gaze, a quiet formality that he needs her to check for him.

As if he would ever take any risk of rejection.

She swallows, bites her bottom lip with a minimal nod as she tears her eyes away from the mirror to get out of her own car and make a beeline towards the front door. He follows her, because this is actually what he always does. Following her behind closed doors where temptations are no longer forbidden. 

They don't say a word as she fumbles with her keys, pushes the door open and shakes her jacket off her shoulders three steps into the doorway. It falls on the ground with a soft thud as he kicks the front door shut behind them, plunging their frantic duo in relative darkness since neither of them bothers to use the light switch.

An instant later his fingers are entangled in her hair, pulling harsh, his palm cupping her breast, and he pushes her against the wall, bites her lips once before he buries his mouth in her neck, sharp teeth ready to sink in softness.

Her hands crawl up his biceps to his shoulders, pulling him impossibly closer as she's melting like butter against the hot fires his lips are lighting on her skin.

"Elizabeth," he mouthes against her collarbone, his tone dripping with desperate craving and want, and she feels likes she's so wet already that she's going to leave a snail mark shaped like her on the wall.

"Rio, Rio, Rio..." she deliriously chants back in-between gasps, her palms cradling the back of his head, her hips grinding into him, completely out of her control.

It's more jolting than electricity, more intoxicating than booze, more thrilling than crime. 

She can feel him, impossibly hard and thick, pressed against her thigh through his jeans, and she pushes her hips forward, feels like she's never wanted someone the way she wants him now, no matter all the impossible complications they put themselves and each other through.

He groans against her skin in response, pulls back to flip her like a coin and push her against the wall again, so abruptly that she needs to flatten her palms in front of her not to swat her own face.

His chest is pressed against her back when one of his hands circles her waist from behind her and pops her jeans open, fingers immediately slipping in her panties and eliciting a choked moan from her throat, the sound so desperate that she's almost ashamed of it. 

She will _never_ forget the growl he lets out at how wet he finds her. The sound is already carved in her brain, a burning red iron leaving a fuming mark. His other hand slips under her flexed arm to squeeze her breast and sharply pinch her nipple through the floral blouse until she cries out, wriggling in his embrace.

She gropes backward with one hand, palms and cradles his full length through the rough fabric of his pants but he smacks her hand away, uses his hips to pin her against the wall and grind into her ass while his fingers pump in and out of her at a maddening pace. 

By the time his fingers unceremoniously slip out of her, Beth is a whimpering mess gone limp in Rio's arms, and she whines in protest at the sudden loss. But then he pulls her jeans and panties down and hooks her waist backward, slipping a foot between her legs, and she has to brace herself against the wall to not lose her balance.

She's literally _sobbing_ with want when she hears him unzip his pants, his free hand pressing down at the small of her back. Finally the tip of his cock brushes her folds, shooting unfair electricity in her nerves and he lines himself with her. But just when she's expecting him the most he seems to hesitate, softly stroking her drenched cunt but absolutely not giving her what she obviously wants — _needs_.

"Please..." she moans, arching her back in a vain attempt to meet him.

"Ask for it," he demands with absolutely undeserved authority, and fine.

Normally she'd have rolled her eyes, protested, tried to win back the upper hand. But she doesn't have time to play games _now_. She needs this more than she needs to breathe.

"Fuck me," she gives in, incapable of delaying the feeling of him inside of her any longer.

The noise he lets out tells her that he's as desperate for this as she is. He immediately pushes hard and her fingers curl and uncurl convulsively against the wall, searching for something to _clutch_.

He bottoms out slowly, pressing himself impossibly closer, until he hits a spot so _deep_ that Beth sees stars, her eyes filling with tears, a chocked hiccup spilling out of her mouth. It feels so good that she could cry. She didn't know she'd missed the feeling of his cock stretching her — _filling_ her — so much until she got this renewed taste of it. She gasps and his hot lips brush her cheek, sending shivers in her neck.

"Fuck, you feel so good, mama," he whispers, hoarse, his body pressed against her all the way up.

"I know," she replies smugly, and he bites her earlobe in retaliation for her cockiness.

She mewls, half in pleasure and half from the discomfort of his sharp teeth sinking just a little too deep, and it seems to turn him on even more. He pulls out a little and gives her a few slow strokes to adjust until she pants in frustration.

"Faster," she begs.

He lets out a throaty sound of approval — or surprise, maybe, at this point reading his mood is no longer a priority — and straightens suddenly, one hand coming at her hip, his fingers pressing roughly in her skin to keep her in place, the other firmly holding her shoulder. And she misses the warm, intoxicating proximity of his body in her back, but the new angle is so much better now that she shudders, pressing on her toes to keep up with his hips and take as much of him as possible.

He sets a rough, insane pace, and there's probably more fury than desire in the way he fucks her right now but she doesn't care. Him, him, him, him, her mind chants with every thrust, blurring the line between pain and pleasure, and she has to bite the inside of her palm to muffle her screams and not wake up the _entire_ neighborhood. She can feel her orgasm building deep in her belly, torturous, and massive, and probably _shattering_ , and she trembles in anticipation, completely powerless in his grip. The way he's holding her gives her no other choice but to stand and take it — him — and perhaps she goes crazy a little more at the thought. He's not being nice with her. Nor gentle, to say the least. Not this time.

But even in his deepest anger, she can tell that he's holding himself back, constantly refraining his instinct to go faster, harder, rougher. To hurt her. And maybe it's this final detail that eventually pushes her over the edge, this tiny knowledge that even lost at his sea of hatred, rivalry, and punishment, deep down he still cares just _enough_ to not cross that line of un-undoable things.

He thrusts inside of her one last time, so deep it almost hurts, and she vaguely hears him groan, his forehead pressed against her shoulder, but she's too busy losing her own mind in one endless moan to really pay attention.

They stay still, panting, for half a minute before he slowly detaches his fingers from her hip and her arm, and she winces when she realizes how deep he dug them in the flesh, purposefully marked his territory. She takes for certain that she'll bruise tomorrow.

He pulls out with an obscene pop, his come dripping down her thighs, and she waits motionless until he's left the house to abandon the quiet steadiness of the wall and stumble for the shower.

It seems like they can't help themselves after that.

Because — well, as it turns out, she sees him again. Couldn't not, even if she wanted to. It's actually more him seeing her again than the other way around. Not for _that_ , though. It's business. In the grandiosity of his trademark nosy dickishness, he's wanted in since the very moment he set foot at the Porcupine, that was obvious. Strong-arming her into a vicious partnership was just a piece of cake after that, and she honestly can't tell if he's primarily here for the money or — something else.

At this point, she's forced by the circumstances to announce his return from the dead, since Annie walks in on him unwarned one evening when he's casually checking the printer in the Porcupine backroom. Her little sister almost faints at the sight, and she probably owes Mick's reflex and solid arms to not have ended the night in the ER with a concussion.

The explanation that Beth is summoned to provide after that is _painful_. Annie and Ruby are both furious — understandably, Beth can give them that — and concerned, and it takes all of Beth's diplomatic skills and slight dishonesty — it's not a lie if it's just an _omission_ , right? — to convince them that they're off the murder hook. 

Which is _probably_ true, anyway. As a matter of fact, Rio hasn't uttered any threat ever since he let slip out the fact that he needed her alive.

Hasn't uttered much of anything, actually.

Perhaps a crisis occurred after her money-making little show, because she's never seen him without Mick ever since, a weird tiny-clothed interpreter. At least at money drops and anything related to business. But Rio texts her after those, generally an hour later. Sends her a location. More than often it's just GPS coordinates. They meet in dark, derelict places, and he fucks her against his monstrous car, or a tree, sometimes a dirty wall, his fist pulling hard at her hair, and his mouth marking her skin for _days_. Sometimes he even grabs her throat and squeezes slightly, and there's a devious part of her that wishes he squeezed harder, maybe even choked her.

They never talk during it, never talk about it, avoid each other's look.

And she keeps telling herself that they should stop this, but it feels like it's beyond their own control, that they're both trapped in a prison they don't even know how to escape from. She now correctly identifies every nuance of longing, frustration, and anger in his gaze whenever their eyes meet at drops, the distance between their bodies only preserved by Mick's constant vigilance.

Their encounter only two hours after he's killed Lucy might be their best time. Which makes it the worst.

The place is nightmarish, as if he were constantly looking for the most sordid location for their illicit rendezvous. He takes her against a dumpster in some sort of wasteland, and she reckons she'll be lucky if she doesn't die from tetanus.

There's a renewed vigor in his pounding, his teeth biting her shoulder so hard she worries he'll eventually shred a piece of flesh, and she's not sure if this energy shift is due to the proximity of death, or the blood newly shed in the crucible of their endless war.

If it has anything to do with her, basically.

It doesn't stop her from coming, hard, in this parody of love they're performing.

On such a night, she feels like a monster. She shouldn't let this happen after he... she... Lucy...

"We need to stop this," she mutters against the rusty wall of the dumpster while he's re-zipping his pants in her back. "Don't text me again."

He doesn't say anything, but appears to oblige since her burner stays fiercely silent over the following weeks. Mick looks sullener than ever on drops, and she can tell that the yearning is still there in the apparent coldness with which Rio looks at her. Talks to her. But she won't give in. No matter how desperately she wants to.

It even feels like a game at some point, to play with this mutual aching and attract the other's attention. He gives her long stares behind Mick's back, she shows off her breasts. He dresses up, she fluffs her hair like a damn peacock. He robs her house in a pricky retaliation for a _minor_ theft, she puts an hour of efforts in her make-up, wears the biggest, ugliest polka dots she's ever seen as an ironic reminder.

He puts a gun in her hand, she pays someone to pull the trigger.

And all of this for nothing but this empty feeling of failure when she frantically rubs herself under her blanket at nights, knows that he's probably doing the same somewhere across town.

But that's — for the best.

Surely.

Eventually things seem to thaw a little though, despite the obvious antagonism, and she has absolutely no valid clue to explain it. Maybe it's just time. Maybe murder is his favorite way to unwind, wouldn't _that_ come out as a surprise. Maybe she's paid her debt, one way or another.

Maybe he's just as tired of all this as she is.

Of course he's still an asshole, though. Makes it extremely clear that she won't get away with a spa store in her name just like that. Has even the audacity to _smile_ at her frustration.

"Next time empty the clip," he just shrugs with the most annoying grin in the world and she looks at him with exasperation. "I'll see you soon, yeah?"

She exhales, trying to stay calm as he steps away. It's not — that bad. She still gets to make more profit than she ever made, even if she has to accept that he'll always be this buzzing inconvenience poking at her shoulder with a poisonous sting whenever she won't move enough cash.

It's exhausting, being in her skin.

"Can I ask you summin'?" 

She straightens, a millenary instinct of danger setting her spine on alarm. He came back. Which is _never_ a good sign.

"What?"

"Why didn't you take the opportunity to finish me off when I was..."

His hand vaguely gestures around with no real meaning to the motion but she gets it. Why he's asking now. How blabbering around about empty clips must have revived an objectively understandable interrogation. She could have done this, hell, she _thought_ about it.

"Because I'm not a murderer," her answer slips out effortlessly, probably even honest if she had to guess.

He raises disbelieving eyebrows at this, and she _gets_ it, the irony of it all, but eventually he lets her words sink in the hollow silence of the showroom.

"What are you then, Elizabeth?"

He looks at her, curious, and she shakes her head. She doesn't know what to say to that. And maybe that's part of the problem. Because right now, after everything that has happened, _a good person_ seems kind of far-fetched. And _a mother of four_ would only make him snort derisively.

The silent stretches undesirably until he bits his bottom lip, his jaw rocking in frustration.

"Aight, then,"

He turns away, his shoulder squared in a tense line, and something sharp tears her apart. An innate reflex, really. And there's this _absurd_ intuition running in her mind that if she lets him go right now something is going to be irremediably broken.

"Wait!"

He stops in his stride. So abruptly that she may or may not have heard the sole of his sneakers screech against the slippery linoleum of the showroom.

He rolls his eyes back at her with annoyed expectation, and suddenly she knows what to say. She takes a step forward, her demeanor tentative.

"How's your shoulder?"

That's — obviously not what he expected. He can't completely hide his brief surprise but he doesn't say anything, just looks at her and waits. 

She closes the distance, eyes locked with his until she's so close he has to lower his gaze to still meet her eyes.

She takes him in, checks him even, reflexes kicking up, a beeping echo pulsating in her head. The tiny but regular twitch at his temple telling the pace of his heartbeat. The slight wheezing under his breath. Her fingers prickle with the automatic desire to plug nonexistent needles and dress already healed wounds.

Because —

Well, she's not a doctor. Sure. 

But that's — that's what she is. A caretaker. Give her someone, anyone, to keep under her wings, and she'll protect them. Brood them. Nurse them. Sometimes detrimentally, even.

And no matter what happened between them before and after it, she can't undo this ephemeral moment in time when her only job was to keep him alive.

She can feel his eyes and his breath on her face, and she swallows. Knows what the next step is.

"Can I... see?" she feebly asks.

He faintly nods, his Adam's apple frantically moving up and down, so she unbuttons his shirt, checks the stitches, notices how the skin has healed, still a little out of its natural tone here and there, but at least the puffiness is gone. A door slams in the distance but she doesn't pay attention to it, too absorbed by the intensity of the instant. Her fingertips ghost the scars, and before she knows it — what is she even thinking? — she drops a soft kiss on the marred patch.

He shivers under her palm, gasps at the touch of her lips, or maybe the sight of her face against his chest, she doesn't know. 

He slides a finger under her jaw to pull her face up and she stares at him in silence for a moment. So long that she even has time to vaguely register distant footsteps before she eventually gets nervous as he's still peering attentively at her through his lashes.

"What?" she asks, shaking her head in slight expectation.

He doesn't reply to that, but something alters in his expression, something that has her holding her breath for an instant.

_Oh._

The look in his eyes is painfully soft when he tilts his head, his finger gently pulling at her chin to bring her closer, and she can't stop herself from staring at his mouth. And then he's leaning in closer, and her eyelids fall shut when his lips brush hers.

A throat clears loudly, the sound coming from _way_ too close.

They pull away, abruptly, and she slightly shrieks. She's still recovering, dizzy and searching for balance, when her eyes blink open and zero on Mick's unhappy look. Rio bites his lips and steps back, the loss of his warmth and proximity physically painful.

There's a silent dialogue between Mick and Rio, mostly consisting of scowls and lips twitching, before Mick suddenly turns to her.

"C'mon, I'll give you a ride home," he grunts.

"This is ridiculous! I drove here in my own car!" she protests.

"Keys," Mick demands, stretching out his large palm, and Beth wants to kick him in frustration.

Somehow she senses that she doesn't have room for negotiation, though. Which is odd, really. It's not like there is any chance that Mick will press a gun to her forehead in front of his boss whom she... what? Almost made out with the instant before?

But Rio seems to have cowardly withdrawn from the argument, he gives her a small yet imperative nod demanding that she complies and she sighs, fumbling in her pocket for her car key that she drops in Mick's hand.

She feels like a teenager caught smoking.

There's a promise hanging in Rio's warm gaze when he gives her one last look before turning around to leave the showroom, and she catches herself oddly wondering about the backseat dimensions of his ginormous car.

She fulminates all the way to her van and scowls at Mick when he settles on the driver's side. Doesn't utter a word as she's trying to swallow her frustration, desire beating _fast_ in her core.

"When I told you to sort your shit out that's not what I meant," Mick grunts in the middle of horny thoughts that she'd rather eat her own shoes than confess to anybody.

"Huh?" she asks, confused, before she remembers.

_Right._

She shrugs, "It is what it is."

"Don't play that game. It's dangerous. For you and for him," Mick retorts with a severe seriousness she's never seen in him so far.

God, she _really_ feels like a teenager caught smoking and being lectured by her dad. Except that Mick is nowhere near being — well, fuck him.

"It's not really any of your business," she coldly points out.

"Just don't."

And Mick literally throws himself out of her car before she can say anything, and climbs in the G-wagon that pulled over right behind. And sure, she guesses that it makes sense for Rio to give Mick a ride back home but again. What is wrong with these guys?

The obnoxious vehicle takes off and she can't stop thinking of the lust in Rio's eyes, the silent promise to resume what they started, and she wonders in a daze if she should leave the front door unlocked.

He's always used the backyard anyway.

He doesn't show up in her bedroom in the middle of the night as she hoped he would, but it doesn't tone down her frantic enthusiasm. She spends the next few days in a masturbatory haze, replays their moment in the showroom on a loop in her mind, until she realizes that he hasn't called. Hasn't texted. Hasn't sent her any sign of interest ever since that loaded glance.

She hates him.

Hell, she hopes he'll like the black sweater indecently opening a view on her cleavage that she picks for their next drop because he's nowhere near putting his hands on it.

She checks one more time the location on the text that Mick sent her and frowns when she sees the date on the glowing screen of her phone. It's — familiar. A thought, more of a feeling really, snakes in the back of her mind, slightly pulls at the edges of her conscience. She feels like she's forgotten something important but she can't figure out what.

But the good news is, she's right where she should be. They switched drop meeting points back to shady parks, lately. Better not draw too much attention on either the gift shop or the spa store.

Rio does give an appreciate long glance to the keyholed piece of clothing when he shows up, and she can't stop her cheeks from burning under the flirtatious playfulness of his scrutiny. It feels like old times, and maybe she just wants to bathe a little longer in it before she gives in.

As she will. Obviously.

He picks the duffel bag from her hand, brushing her fingers in the process, and she sucks in a gasp, unwilling to let the handle go.

"Elizabeth..." he starts softly, a fond look in his eyes.

Then it all happens all at once. Mick slams the G-wagon's door a bit roughly behind them and a crow flies in panic from a nearby tree, almost colliding with Beth on its way out. Just as she jumps aside and in front of Rio in a bird-avoidance reflex, a pebble ricochets against her flank. Or so the shock feels. A gun goes off at the same time in the distance and she realizes why the date sounded so familiar.

She got the notice weeks ago, though. And yet, she completely forgot that the hit was scheduled tonight.

And more important, she completely forgot to cancel the whole operation, lost in her tornado of lust and conflicted feelings.

The first thing she discovers is that this kind of event doesn't happen as it does in the countless movies she's absorbed. People don't fall on their knees in slow motion, screaming a _no_ that seems to never end.

She unceremoniously collapses on the dirt instead, and there's a second of absolute silence. Stupor, even, before chaos blasts. Mick and Rio start yelling in what sounds like Spanish, gunshots fill her ears, and the pain erupts in her back, so sharp that she can't even breathe.

She's dying. She can tell. Blood is flowing over the hand she's pressed against her stomach — or maybe her side, she doesn't even know anymore — in a warm stream that mixes with the viscous mud on the ground. Great. Now her favorite sweater is ruined. Tears of pain blind her blinking eyes and she can nearly feel her life going away with every sharp intake of breath her lungs are attempting to perform.

How ironic, though. That she's the one spending her last minutes on the ground, while she'd planned a completely different ending. And then — forgot about it. That's the toughest pill to swallow, honestly. She would laugh at her own stupidity if breathing wasn't already so hard.

Her limbs are getting number by the minute, and she's not even feeling her extremities anymore. She has no idea of how long she's been there, lost in a grey limbo between life and death, and quite oblivious of anything happening around her, but it's probably only a matter of minutes. Maybe even less. At some point she feels him wrap his arms around her and pull her up from the ground, and the pain explodes in her entire body, blinding her mind for a moment. It takes her a few disoriented seconds to understand that he has kneeled down on the humid lawn and brought her on his lap.

"Elizabeth!"

He has to call her several times to get her wandering gaze to focus on him. It's not that she didn't hear him. She did. It just... it didn't feel like the emergency of the moment. People are so annoying with their insatiable need for attention.

Her mind is drifting away in long-forgotten remembrances. She sees herself playing with a prepubescent Annie and it takes her all she's got to come back from this sweet corner of her memory and stare at him, occupy her aching body. Suddenly she's aware all over again of the cold, the pain, the blood. God, the _pain_.

"Hurts," she hisses.

"I know, darlin', I know," he says, soothing, rubbing a finger across her temple.

But it's not... it's not what she meant and she vigorously shakes her head, or at least attempts to. It's probably barely perceptible. But he _has to_ understand.

She had no idea that bullets hurt so much. 

She didn't know how terrifying the prospect of dying alone is. 

But — 

She wishes she had known. She wishes she could tell before she inflicted it on someone else. She wishes she hadn't left him, bleeding on the ground.

"No, I mean — " she starts but she can't go all the way.

So she gropes for his hand instead, holds it tight in hers. Hopes that he'll understand and stay with her until it's — over. That's all she's asking of him.

Her eyes flutter closed and she's already drowning in the blessed and painless oblivion of sleep when the unpleasant sensation of life pokes at her under the form of Rio's fingers sinking into her shoulders and gently shaking her until she eventually reopens her eyes.

And — what now? She's just so _tired_. Her body is heavy as lead and her mind can't focus on anything anymore except the excruciating pain that he keeps waking up every time he moves her. She just wants to go to sleep, what's the harm in that?

"Hey, stay with me, mama," he demands with something concerned and tense in his expression but she doesn't care. She doesn't care about anything. "Where's that fucking ambulance?" she vaguely hears him shout in the distance to someone else.

She thinks about all the things she regrets she didn't say. To him. To Ruby and Annie. To the kids. But it's too late. And she's too weak now to even try to catch Rio's attention. He's spectacularly failing at harvesting her last words, busy as he is with God knows what meaningless issue, because people have such a futile sense of priorities when they're alive.

Even in death he won't give her that. It's the last coherent thought she formulates before everything goes dark.

She wakes up to a quiet beeping that sounds familiar and comforting until she realizes it's only because she's heard it in her immediate background for literal _weeks_ not so long ago. It's basically this, the reassuring noise of monitors that she only knows too well, that tells her that she's alive, instead of her own, untrustworthy sensorial feedback.

The second thing she clocks is — well, it all comes together in a package. The fancy room. The large bed. And _him_. Perched atop of a small decorative desk pushed in the corner, quietly texting, swiping, sending selfies, or whatever the hell he constantly does on his phone.

He soon raises a brow at her though, and she can't decide if it's because he's been regularly checking on her or if he's just sensed her awakening. Doesn't know which option she prefers. He smoothly jumps off his spot to step towards the bed, his expression unreadable beyond the obvious bags under his eyes, and maybe a general weariness emanating from his features.

"Hey," he whispers softly, "how you feelin'?"

Weird. It's the first thing that comes to her mind. Her body is stiff, feeling half-sore and half-anesthetized aside from the dull throb of pain on her side, and for all she knows she could have had an organ — or even a limb — removed that she's not aware of yet. She quickly checks her limbs though, realizes with relief that they're all here, oddly thinks that she'll still be able to get on all four, mentally chastises herself for this, acknowledges that she's just pushing aside the inevitable anxiety, the question she doesn't want to ask.

But has to.

"Spare me the small talk," she groans, surprised at how hoarse her own voice is, her throat feeling dusty like centuries-old parchment. "How bad is it?"

And there's no word to describe how scared she is during the split second it takes him to answer. 

"Bullet broke your rib. Didn't go far after that. Couple of inches further and you'd eat in a plastic bag for the rest of your life."

And it's — There's almost disappointment attached to the learning that her wound wasn't in any way lethal. Unless... well. Maybe, _maybe_ , if someone had left her bleeding for hours, she may not have made it. But. The fact that even in this he managed to upper-hand her is frustrating.

She feels almost ridiculous for having thought that her final moments had come.

But then the implications of what he just said, the potential permanent damages, just kick in and it's too much to bear. She's been lucky. She knows it. But right now she can't stop herself from crying as if she had not been.

"Hey, hey, you're gonna be okay."

His voice pierces through the frenetic fluttering of her thoughts, comforting, and she clings to it like an anchor. And then throws it back to the sea when she gets a closer look at it.

"No, I won't!" she bitterly replies, angrily rubbing her cheeks and trying to erase even the memory of her tears. "Because as soon as I'll get better something else will come up! And then something else. And it will just... keep worsening until I get too tired to even die!"

God, she doesn't know how long she's been unconscious here, but she'd eagerly sign in for a six months nap right now.

"Ah c'mon, don't be dramatic, Elizabeth."

Which is. Really the most hilarious thing coming from him.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're terrible at cheering people up?" she grumpily bites back, hating how unconvincing she sounds.

He raises a brow, seems about to retort with something sharp, but then he clocks her difficulty to swallow and he wordlessly pours her a glass of water.

And it's just —

She freezes. She's been there before. Only it was on the other side.

The monstrous irony of it is lost for neither of them. As he helps her holding the plastic cup against her lips — she _could_ do it all by herself, but he sort of insisted — and his eyes bore into hers with a concentrated expression on his face, it suddenly hits her. How much he had to blindly trust her with his own life, during all those nights. How powerlessly he'd have watched her kill him, had she decided so.

How they both need to rely on each other to survive, no matter what.

The thought causes her to jump a little, and maybe she accidentally contracts a muscle she shouldn't pull or something, because a sharp wave of pain suddenly stabs her side, and she gasps for air. Except that it's water that she inhales instead, and the next thing she knows she's coughing, and the pain in her ribcage is excruciating, to the point that she can't breathe.

Her fingers uncontrollably let go of the plastic cup, and she barely notices the cold wet spot spreading over her stomach. She's blinded with pain when she feels his hands cupping her face and his forehead pressing hard against hers.

"Hey, hey," he calls, soothing, "breathe with me, mama."

And she feels like she's drowning but she tries to follow the guidance he's offering her to gasp her way out of this convulsing vicious circle. Her hands come up to grip his forearms as she focuses on his breathing, and gradually she calms down.

Their mouths are panting together, barely two inches apart, and the need to bridge this gap is almost painful. And she's about to give in and kiss him when he pulls away, slowly.

She clears her throat to mask her trouble. Looks for something sensible to say.

"We have to stop this or one of us will end up really dead, someday," she states.

"No shit," he snorts. Now that she's fine, or at least not drowning in her own spit anymore, his face has lost any trace of concern. He tilts his head, pensive, his teeth running over his bottom lip in a fashion that she's learned to recognize as agitation. "I ain't the one who keeps tryna kill the other, Elizabeth. You wanna tell me how long you plan on doin' that?"

It — comes out as an ice-cold surprise. She can't believe she never even _envisioned_ the possibility that he may find out. 

"Are you going to punish me?" she asks, unsure that there's so much left to say on this matter.

Surprisingly he shakes his head.

"Nah... You already punished yourself. See darlin', takin' that bullet for me was stupid but I appreciate... " he cuts himself when he clocks the face she makes. "What?"

She could let him have this. Never rectify him and stay safe.

But. Maybe she doesn't have any sense of self-preservation, after all. And somehow, she owes it to him. The truth.

She shakes her head, slowly, experimentally almost, tests how far she can go before something stretches and pain breaks in her ribcage. 

"I didn't take the bullet for you. It was all coincidental," she explains with a residual wince and averting her gaze at the last minute.

She doesn't want to witness the extent of his disappointment.

He doesn't... exactly react the way she expected. He _chuckles_. There's a very much amused grin on his face when she raises her eyes, surprised.

"Hey, it's not funny!" she protests. 

"Kinda is, yeah," he guffaws with unbearable mockery.

And, _fine_. Under a certain angle, it _is_ funny. She presses her lips shut not to spit the sour comment she's itching to reply with.

His eyes pensively drop down and his expression suddenly changes, and without even looking, she _knows_. To be honest she kind of felt something burst when she was coughing. She just pushed the unpleasant sensation back to some inaccessible corner of her mind, where it wouldn't scare her.

But it doesn't change the fact that she's bleeding. Maybe a stitch broke, or she just stretched the skin too much, or — God, she doesn't even _know_ how it all looks like there. He steps towards the bed and she exhales loudly.

"You don't... you don't have to do this," she whispers, distraught.

His eyes meet hers, and he nods.

"I know. I wanna."

She has to press her eyelids shut not to let him see the stream of contradictory feelings she's drowning in.

"Okay," she breathes.

He's already halfway through patching her up — to her huge relief she didn't break any stitch, just reopened insufficiently cicatrized cuts — when she realizes that she's not wearing a bra. And that the extent of skin that she presently displays chest-wise does not exactly leave anything for the imagination.

She shivers, suddenly self-conscious. But he doesn't even seem to have noticed anything, focused on her dressing as he is, long fingers working with practiced accuracy, the back of his hand accidentally brushing the curve of her breast once in a while and not eliciting one single reaction from him.

She has to suck in a breath at his touch, though. It's not — well, nobody would get _turned on_ from this. But. Maybe she wants more. Maybe she wants him to touch her. Maybe it's been too long since the last time he did.

She looks away, tries to focus on something else. Someone else. Only when she rolls her eyes back at him she finds him _staring_ , his mouth hanging open, his hands resting on the bedsheet far away from the dressing he's obviously finished taping ages ago.

And her tongue burns with the itch to tell him to go on, to touch her, to put his hands, his mouth, whatever he likes on her skin, that she wants him to, when he seems to suddenly realize that she caught him staring. He precipitately stands up and steps back from the bed, his jaw rocking furiously.

She averts her gaze, tries to find something to say to alleviate the heavy curtain of embarrassment that seems to have fallen over them.

"What about my kids?" she asks, and it's not that she isn't worried about them — she _always_ is, it's like a second nature — but she doesn't really believe they're in any way at risk here, or not taken care of. 

Rio would never trim any hair from their heads if he had any payback to collect from her. God, he probably even made sure himself that they are in good hands now.

There's contempt in the way his lips twitch in response, though.

"It's all under control. They ain't got no responsibility in what you did," he icily drops.

And okay, fine, she gets that he's pissed. 

But. It's not her fault if he's been — a dick. Compromising her with her fingerprints on a gun tainted with an innocent's blood. Honestly, ordering a hit didn't sound like a bad idea at the time. And even if she messed up quite massively in the resolution, he... well he could try a little understanding.

So she purses her lips in return, plainly disinterested in the prospect of begging for his mercy.

He gives her the silent treatment for literal _hours_ after the incident and she can't decide whether he's madder at her or at himself. It doesn't matter anyway. She doesn't care. It's not her problem if he's being a petty child with this and pulling tricks out of his sleeves to make her regret every minute they spend in that room together.

She's his to torment, that she knows. Always has, always will. And she faces it, takes his disappointed looks, absorbs his vicious silence with great detachment.

But here's the funny thing. As he picks his jacket, tossed over a chair in a corner of the room, she should be relieved that he's leaving for the night or God knows how long he's planned.

Except that she's not.

The prospect of staying stuck in there alone is properly maddening.

"Don't," she hisses as he grabs the doorknob.

His head whips around suspiciously fast in regard to the indifference he's tended to display, and he raises a brow.

"What?"

And... she can't believe she's doing this. Can't believe that she's giving in so easily and showing off her cards in such uncontrollable honesty.

But — but. Maybe he already revealed his own game when their lips touched in the showroom. Maybe all this time it's been her turn to make a move.

"Could you... could you stay?" she asks with a small voice.

He instantly goes full sardonic smirk and she lowers her eyes. This was a mistake.

"And why is that?" he drawls.

"Because..." she starts before she stops in her tracks, defeated.

She can't say it. It's too much. But he keeps staring at her, waiting, _expecting_ , and, well. Anything to keep him there just a little longer.

"Was it true what Mick said the first night he brought me in... that you'd been asking about me?" she suddenly asks.

He frowns. Obviously he wasn't expecting _that_. Neither was she, to be honest.

"Why the fuck would Mick lie 'bout that?"

Which — sort of answers the question.

"Okay," she softly breathes, averting her gaze, unwilling to watch him leave.

But he doesn't. Instead he steps away from the door and comes to stand by her bed, peers at her with a renewed interest.

"Why d'you want me to stay?"

She takes a deep inhale. Knows that there's no coming back, because if he turns her down _now_ , she's not sure she can recover from it.

"Ineedyou," she inaudibly utters.

The reciprocating silence is _painful_. She can't look at him, paralyzed with fear, and she hears him swallow.

"You what?"

God, not now. She rolls her eyes, appalled by the extent of his childishness. He can't possibly play this game right now. Not when she feels like she's jumped naked from the highest cliff on earth and has to trust him to receive her before she hits the ground. She shakes her head, fulminating.

"You heard me!"

Maybe she's a little disappointed too, that her confession didn't elicit a more spontaneous reaction from him.

"Say it, Elizabeth."

_You got this, come on._

Somehow it feels like they always end up like this. Facing a choice she has to make, a leap of faith she's never completely ready to take.

"I need you," she breathes, exhausted, the words leaving her mouth almost without her permission.

From there, it's sort of unclear to her how her admission turns into an invitation but the next thing she knows he's climbed into bed with her, pressed his chest against her back, buried his face in her hair, and wrapped his arms around her. She groans a little when his elbow inadvertently applies some pressure on her broken rib, and he immediately shifts, mumbling an apology while his fingers draw a soothing pattern up and down her arm.

It feels weird at first. _Cuddling_. It's not something they do, but — once she's overcome the awkwardness of the first minute she eventually lets him spoon her. She relaxes against him, revels in the way his breath caresses her neck, indulges in the warmth of his body so close to hers.

He takes a sharp inhale and she immediately tuts him.

"Don't say anything," she warns.

Indulging in this is already embarrassing enough, she doesn't need the director's commentary on it. He complies, just chuckles a little against her ear, his stubble leaving goosebumps on her skin in a way that makes her want to wriggle her way closer and further at the same time.

At some point he slips a hand around her waist, extra careful this time not to involuntarily hurt her. He sprawls his large palm over her stomach in a gesture that's both possessive and affectionate, and she timidly places her own hand over his, intertwines their fingers and holds her breath, feeling like she's toeing a forbidden line.

The one of intimacy.

But he doesn't remove his hand from this, so she acts as if it wasn't a big deal.

It is a massive deal.

"Hey what happened to the hitman?" she suddenly asks, mostly to divert the malaise.

"Took care of it," his sleepy voice replies from behind.

She can't stop herself from slightly pivoting in his embrace to look at his face.

"Did you kill him?"

"Nah..." he grins. "Hired him. Dude's got great aim. Got a few jobs for him. Not you," he adds, annoyed, as he clocks the sudden alarm on her face.

He gently pushes her forward and she re-settles comfortably against the shelter of his chest.

It's only an undefined amount of time later, as she's slowly sinking into slumber, that he softly calls.

"Elizabeth?"

She hums interrogatively, too tired to form actual words.

"I think I need you too."

She quietly squeezes his fingers in response as a soft and warm feeling spreads through her body.

And soon it doesn't feel enough — to hold his hand. She needs more. She carefully contorts herself in his arms — she's got a _broken rib_ for God's sake! — until they are face to face, and he's right here to receive her, palms cradling her jaws and hooded eyes leaving no mystery to his intentions.

His lips are soft and plain against hers. Genuine, even, his mouth telling a different story than his hands or his cock did. It's as if every part of his body spoke a different language. But eventually these all weave in to create a tapestry of anger and desire, hate and affection, that she's not sure she's ever seen so clearly.

He plays with her lips for a while and she timidly responds, not even daring to touch him intently. And then he slightly opens his mouth, deepens the kiss a little, slips the tip of his tongue in her mouth and she can't keep this little languid moan for herself. And then he kisses her deeper. And deeper. She snakes one hand up to his forearm, grips his arm, shoulder, clings to him as he slips an arm in her back to bring her closer.

He kisses her with hunger, urgency, like he never kissed her before, even when they had all the time in the world, bathed in the golden sunlight of the afternoon. And in that instant all she can think about is his hand clutching hers under the sheet of his recovery bed, his hopeless vulnerability, the wounds she patched. The wounds _he_ patched. How everything that should have broken them apart for good eventually brought them closer instead.

And she senses that he feels it too.

She splays her fingers at the back of his head, moaning softly under his mouth, desire igniting in her body until her ribcage aches from her panting and he gently breaks the kiss.

"Gotta stop before you get hurt real bad, mama," he drawls, licking his lips.

He reaches a hand to stroke her face and push some hair out of the way with sheer tenderness, and she blinks.

"Is Mick... okay with this?" she asks, remembering his seriousness in her car, the bad omen he seemed to foresee for him. 

Her. _This_.

Rio gently catches her hand in his, brings it back to his mouth to kiss her knuckles one by one with filthy promises shining in the depths of his eyes.

"He'll have to. He ain't makin' the rules here."

"Yes but —"

He shushes her, pulling her into a softer kiss that tastes like a second chance.

Or — whatever-eenth. She's stopped counting these a while ago, honestly.

Then he drags his lips across her cheek to drop filthy whispers in her ear about all the things he's planning to do to her once she's healed, and there's one item or two on that list that will probably need a serious conversation first but whatever.

She closes her eyes, lets herself fall for the lullaby of his drawls until he negligently drops, "One more thing. I'll add your medical bill to what you already owe me, cool?"

He smirks ironically as he settles next to her, and she rolls her eyes, mostly out of habit. Because obviously this doesn't change anything. Doesn't change him. Doesn't change her.

But for the first time in what feels like years, maybe decades, a peaceful feeling washes over her. Because maybe she's deserved this after all, maybe every decision she's made, every mistake, it only led to this point in the end. Everything making sense, even in a twisted, painful way.

Maybe it's karma.

She's still philosophizing over the meaning of her life in general when she gets aware of a soft and regular snore beside her, and something blossoms in her chest at the thought that he fell asleep right next to her. She swallows, slowly turns her head with ridiculously trembling reverence.

If anything it's disappointing.

There's absolutely nothing remarkable about the face that he makes when he's sleeping. He doesn't look younger, or softer, or even harsher. If anything he just looks stupid with his mouth half-open, but maybe that's what makes her like him even more.

With a fond smile, she snuggles back against him and closes her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation [...] but in the desire for shared sleep.”_
> 
> Milan Kundera

**Author's Note:**

> Story title from _I need a doctor_ by Dr. Dre feat. Eminem and Skylar Grey.


End file.
